State improving accessibility at polling places, training of poll workers; should implement vote centers, expand opportunities to vote before Election Day

WASHINGTON, DC -- As the 2014 election enters its final days, Arkansas is making progress in addressing the problems behind the long lines, clerical errors and misallocated resources that bedeviled the 2012 election, according to a new report from Common Cause.

The report is the first to compare the Presidential Commission's recommendations with election administration practices in key states. The Commission released its recommendations 10 months ago.

"In 2012, many Arkansans felt their right to vote, a core tenet of citizenship, was impaired by the voting process," said Miles Rapoport, President of Common Cause. "Today's report shows us that while Arkansas is making improvements in safeguarding our right to vote, we still have a long way to go. It's up to us as citizens to make sure these problems are solved."

A chart showing Arkansas's progress implementing the recommendations of the Commission can be found here.

The report found that many states, including Arkansas, have not done enough to increase opportunities for voting before Election Day, a step that shortens voter wait times. By contrast, the report found the state has decent laws on the books to encourage poll worker recruitment and training. The state has yet to adopt online voter registration.

"States have the power to fix one of the biggest problems with the 2012 election -- people waiting six or even 10 hours to cast their votes," said Common Cause Policy Counsel Stephen Spaulding, who co-authored the report. "If more states followed the Commission's common-sense recommendations, we could drastically improve the voting experience. Some of these recommendations could be adopted as soon as tomorrow, without changing any formal policies or rules. Together, these reforms will make voting more convenient and will encourage participation, especially by those historically marginalized."

The Commission recommended that states conduct post-election audits to check election results.

Arkansas has no laws in place to audit its elections, however, so it received an "unsatisfactory" rating by Common Cause on this point. The report found that of the six states which do have this requirement -- Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania -- none have fully auditable elections; some of those states' voting machines lack voter-verifiable paper records and some accept electronic return of voted ballots from military and overseas voters.

"We may be in the age of the iPhone 6, but we should still always check our technology to be sure it's working for us and not against us," said Allegra Chapman, Common Cause's Director of Voting and Elections and a coauthor of the report. "As states continue to modernize elections, they should prioritize requiring and creating the ability to fully audit their elections to ensure election outcomes are what voters intended -- not the result of machine malfunction or programming error."

The report found that several states not covered by Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act, including Kentucky, North Carolina, and Georgia, are disenfranchising voters by largely failing to adopt the Commission's recommendation to provide sufficient bilingual support for their growing populations of limited English proficient citizens. States should work with advocacy groups to identify bilingual individuals to assist at the polls on Election Day, and before that for both early voting and translation of documents, the study suggested.

There's room for hope, however: Report authors discovered that a majority of states are moving forward by adopting electronic systems to seamlessly integrate voter data acquired through Departments of Motor Vehicles with statewide voter registration lists. The report urges states to replicate this success by ensuring seamless integration of data acquired through all voter registration agencies, including public assistance agencies and health care exchanges.

Common Cause is a nonpartisan grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. We work to create open, honest, and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity, and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.